Disney Disappointments

[Tobe]

'Ohana. By far the worst food me and my family have ever had on WDW property.

We have eaten at Ohana once. We didn't have a problem with the food. The food we had was pretty good however the service was horribly bad. Rude wait staff, having to basically beg for them to bring around a second offering of the skewered meats even though it is supposed to be an all you can eat buffet (and we took very small portions the first time because we were still finishing salad etc.), and having the waitress clear the table next to us by setting up a bucket right next to my chair into which she proceeded to very loudly scrape the leftover food off the used plates, actually splattering me at times, all the while the other tables around the table she was clearing, were unoccupied. There was no reason she couldn't have been doing this on the other side of the table away from us. I don't usually let bad wait staff bother me as I know it can be a thankless job and it isn't easy to put up with rude customers all day long. But this was truly one of the worst dining experiences we have ever had.

As far as bad food goes, my only real complaint with all the places I have eaten at WDW is Le Cellier. The beer cheese soup was excellent as was the pretzel bread sticks but the steak was one of the worst, if not the worst, I have ever had in my life and as much as I paid for it, I expected much better. And I know Disney can do better because I had one of the best steaks of my life at the no longer existing Concourse Steakhouse at the Contemporary Resort. We keep meaning to try the Yachtsman Steakhouse at the Yacht and Beach Club resort but we haven't made it there yet. Hoping it will be more like the Concourse Steakhouse than Le Cellier.

 

[Figmentation]

Disappointing Disney - Should be the title of a book, would be a fun write up.

In all honesty, I'm not disappointed in Starbucks, Avatar land, FP+ or anything else that's happened recently.
Disney just hasn't given me the option to even CARE about those things.

I guess I'm more disappointed in Disney that I'm numb now to the fact they are changing their parks so drastically.
It doesn't make me angry or disappointed at them, I'm more disappointed at myself for not caring so much. It's become so commonplace that I'm used to it.

My reactions to the most recent changes:

Avatar Land: Really? Yeah it's about conservation. But I never have seen the movie.. and never plan to. It's Ferngully with oversized smurfs instead of fairies. Overall level of care: "Nadda"

Frozen in Norway: The movie takes place in Norway, it's been repeated as fact. It's the VERSION of Norway that people are angry about. Take into consideration - Norway wants nothing to do with their own pavilion anymore. They have not paid for it in years (2002 since the government there gave WDW a dime). What Disney does with that location is their own issues. Being disappointed doesn't change a thing, it's still gonna happen. To them it's still Norway. Overall level of care: "At least we'll see people WANTING to goto Epcot now."

Starbucks: Anything is better than the sludge they're serving now. Even if it is Starbucks. Overall level of care: "Overpriced decent coffee is better than overpriced crap."

Seeing people complain about the above just makes me go: "Get used to it."

...and that's whats so disappointing about Disney. A lot of us really have gotten used to it.

 

[SpaceMountain75]

We have eaten at Ohana once. We didn't have a problem with the food. The food we had was pretty good however the service was horribly bad. Rude wait staff, having to basically beg for them to bring around a second offering of the skewered meats even though it is supposed to be an all you can eat buffet (and we took very small portions the first time because we were still finishing salad etc.), and having the waitress clear the table next to us by setting up a bucket right next to my chair into which she proceeded to very loudly scrape the leftover food off the used plates, actually splattering me at times, all the while the other tables around the table she was clearing, were unoccupied. There was no reason she couldn't have been doing this on the other side of the table away from us. I don't usually let bad wait staff bother me as I know it can be a thankless job and it isn't easy to put up with rude customers all day long. But this was truly one of the worst dining experiences we have ever had.

As far as bad food goes, my only real complaint with all the places I have eaten at WDW is Le Cellier. The beer cheese soup was excellent as was the pretzel bread sticks but the steak was one of the worst, if not the worst, I have ever had in my life and as much as I paid for it, I expected much better. And I know Disney can do better because I had one of the best steaks of my life at the no longer existing Concourse Steakhouse at the Contemporary Resort. We keep meaning to try the Yachtsman Steakhouse at the Yacht and Beach Club resort but we haven't made it there yet. Hoping it will be more like the Concourse Steakhouse than Le Cellier.

We had a similar experience with the service. We got to our second "course" before they even brought out our drinks. And I realize that it's a busy restaurant, but we never had to wait 30 minutes for a few cups of Coke at any other Disney restaurant. You must have had different meat than we had, because ours was fatty and pretty rare. I'm glad yours was good, though!

We've never eaten at Le Cellier but it seems to get a lot of criticism for that same thing. However, we ate at Teppan Edo on our trip for the first time and the food, service and chef were phenomenal!

 

[Dwarful]

Any chance that the breakfast you miss at Tony's is the one that included free cinnamon rolls... I recall those very fondly!!

Yep....that is the one!

 

[mousehockey37]

All opinion - we like the Disney owned restaurants. Sadly, the SIGS are being slowly destroyed by the DDP - it puts a cap on the monetary value of what they may offer, and drives good chefs & managers to drink . We really hope WDW fixes this by allowing good restaurants to go BACK to a two menu system - or allowing them to offer prix fixe with add-ons....

But the biggest disappointment isn't the restaurants - it's WDW's pathetic computer infrastructure . A web site that is mostly broken most of the time, very poor back end database facilities, no change control system, the saddest coders I've ever seen.... it just isn't appropriate for a major corporation. Susan O'Day (current CIO) really needs a transfer to Audio Visual - and Disney REALLY needs a serious CIO. I understand that David Kepler (a VERY good CIO that gets technology and BUSINES, post 1992) is about to become available - he's retiring from Dow Chemical.

So what you're saying is that MDE, MM+, FP+, Dining reservations and everything could actually be streamlined and the program made to work correctly with the right staff behind it? That's not very Disney at all, lol.

 

[mousehockey37]

YES mousehockey37 . Truly, this is a GREAT organization.... but like a lot of major corporations, the idea of firing "dead weight" at high levels is repugnant - so they have not yet done so. Every thing they have done should work well IN THEORY - it hasn't, because of sedentary poor management. Let's look at the balance sheet for Disney - why would a company that is doing SO WELL settle for a third rate CIO? Just me.... it makes no sense, and actually costs them, in terms of lost business.

People have accused me of "complaining" - I'll KEEP complaining as long as my favorite company shafts itself with poor performers.

You keep complaining about the tech end, I'll keep saying that we need leaders that won't make WDW look like Frozen threw up all over it in just about every park.

 

[mousehockey37]

WDW has not gotten past first base, being able to offer reliable Web Based services. And the problem could go away tomorrow, if they just contracted the whole thing out to someone like Amazon, or Oracle, and fired their fake CIO. Perhaps then, they could focus on what they do WELL.

They don't even need to contract it out, there's more than likely a wealth of people out there that could fix things overnight (or within a year) and make the site everything the consumer REALLY wants it to be.

This is where you insert Samuel L Jackson going over to Dennis Nedry's desk in Jurassic Park and pushing all the crap off of it, turning off the system and rebooting it.

 

[mousehockey37]

You are dead right. WHY do I keep "complaining" about this area? It's because WDW just isn't GOOD at it. And I love them, and hate to see them beating their heads against a wall over poor Web Services . This whole thing should be a MINOR concern for a great company.... just find the right people to make it work, then go do what you do WELL .

That's the thing. With the system broken, the crooked people on top are making additional money. A lost reservation that could "pop" back up and get you a charge or other similar things.

If people who can actually comprehend how to run the system were manning the helm, the crooks would lose money, and that's not what they want. Disney has their monkey's performing exactly the way they want for their circus right now.

 

[kels650]

I do miss unique merchandise. I remember on multiple occasions having to run all over on my last day because the item I picked out on day one/two was only sold in one place and I didn't realize it, and for some reason it was always a part of the fun for my family. It has created a lot of funny stories and good memories, and also good spending control because we wanted to look around everywhere before we made decisions because things were different in each place (for the most part). Now with it all being generic I miss the fun of searching for the right item!